‘Love will prevail’: Costa Rica’s same-sex couples can marry in 2020

SAN JOSE (Reuters) – Same-sex couples in Costa Rica will have the right to get married by mid-2020, the nation’s constitutional court has ruled, a first for socially conservative Central America.

FILE PHOTO: LGBT community members and activists demostrate in front of the Supreme Court of Justice, to demand for same-sex marriage, in San Jose, Costa Rica August 4,2018. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate

In a majority decision made public on Thursday, the court backed the opinion of the San Jose-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which said in January that countries in the region should legalize same-sex unions.

Legalizing gay marriage was a major campaign promise by President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, who took office in May.

In recent years, same-sex couples have been allowed to marry in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay and parts of Mexico.